please.”

“Go immediately to your room,” shouted Railsford, as near to losing his temper as his future brother-in-law had ever seen him. “How dare you disobey me?”

“Well, but it was a message from the gov., and—I say, Dig,” added he, turning to his friend with a nudge, “you cut when Mark tells you.”

Dig departed, and Railsford weakly fell in with the arrangement of the junior, and allowed him to remain and deliver the rest of his domestic messages.

“Now, look here, Arthur,” said the master, closing the door and facing his unabashed future kinsman, “we must come to an understanding at once. During term time I forbid you to mention Daisy’s name, either to me or anybody else, unless I wish it—”

The boy whistled. “What, have you had a row, then? Is it all broken off? My eye, what will—”

“Rubbish!” said Mark, scarcely able to keep grave; “it’s neither one nor the other. But I don’t choose you should talk of her, and I insist on being obeyed.”

“Jolly rough not to be able to talk about one’s own sister!” interposed the innocent.

“Of course, I mean not in connection with me,” said Railsford. “And another thing, you must not call me Mark, but Mr Railsford, while term lasts.”

“All serene, Mr Railsford, old man! Jolly stiff, though, between brothers, isn’t it?”

“You must treat me as if I were merely your master, and no other relative.”

“How queer! Mayn’t I even be fond of you?”

“Yes, as your master. I count on you, mind, to set a specially good example to the other boys, and back me up in every way you can. You will be able to do a great deal if you only try.”

“I’m game! Am I to be made a prefect, I say, Mark—Mr Railsford, I mean?”

“And remember,” said Mark, ignoring the question, “that we are here to work, and not to—to drive omnibuses.”

Arthur brightened up suddenly.

“You saw the race, then? Stunning spurt round the last lap, only Dig hadn’t any stay in him, and the cab had the inside berth. I say, don’t let anybody know it was Dig, will you? He’d get in rather a mess, and he’s going to put it on hard this term to make up.”

Could anything be more hopeless than the task of impressing this simple-minded youth with a sense of his duty and deportment towards the new Master of the Shell?

Railsford gave the attempt up, and the school-bell happily intervened to make a diversion.

“That’s for dinner. It’s generally at two, you know; but on opening day it’s 4.30,” said the boy. “We shall have to cut, or we shall be gated, I say.”

“Well, you must show me the way,” said Mark. “I’m ready.”

“You’ll have to wear your cap and gown, though,” replied Arthur, “or you’ll get in a row.”

Railsford hastened to rectify the omission, and next moment was standing in the great square beside his lively young pilot, amid a crowd of boys hastening towards the school hall.

“We’d better do a trot,” said the boy.

“We shall do it all right, I think,” said the master, whose dignity revolted against any motion more rapid than quick walking. Arthur, trotting at his side and encouraging him from time to time to “put it on,” detracted a little from the solemnity of the procession. The bell was just ceasing to ring as they entered the hall, and for the first time Railsford found himself in the presence of the assembled school.

Arthur had darted off to his own table, leaving his companion to find his way to the masters’ table at the head of the hall, where all his colleagues were already in their places, standing for grace.

Railsford, considerably flurried, slipped into the place which Grover had reserved for him just as the head boy present began to recite the Latin collect, and became painfully aware that his already damaged character for punctuality was by no means enhanced in the severe eyes of Dr Ponsford. The new master glanced round a little nervously at his colleagues. Grover introduced him to a few of the nearest, some of whom received him with a friendly greeting, others eyed him doubtfully, and one or two bristled up grimly. The éclat of his first appearance at Grandcourt had paled somewhat, and he was thankful to have Grover to talk to and keep him in countenance.

“Tell me who some of these men are,” he whispered. “Which is Roe?”

“On the other side of me. He has the house next to mine. You, I, Roe, and Bickers have the four sides of the Big Square.”

“Which is Bickers?”

“The man with the black beard—last but one on the other side.”

Railsford gave a furtive look down the table, and encountered the eyes of Mr Bickers fixed discontentedly on him.

A lightning flash at midnight will often reveal minute details of a scene or landscape which in the ordinary glare of day might pass unnoticed by the observer. So it was in this sudden chance encounter of glances. It lasted not a moment, but it was a declaration of war to the knife on one side, hurled back defiantly on the other.

“Not a bad fellow if you don’t stroke him the wrong way,” said Grover.

“Oh,” said Railsford, in a tone which made his friend start. “Who is beyond him?”

“Lablache, the French master; not very popular, I fancy.”

And so on, one master after another was pointed out, and Railsford formed his own opinions of each, and began to feel at home with several of them already. But whenever his eyes turned towards the end of the table they invariably encountered those of Bickers.

There was not much general conversation at the masters’ table. Dr Ponsford rarely encouraged it, and resented it when it arose without his initiative.

The buzz and clatter at the boys’ tables, however, growing occasionally to a hubbub, amply made up for any sombreness in the meal elsewhere; and Railsford, having exhausted his inquiries, and having failed to engage one of his neighbours in conversation, resigned himself to the enjoyment of the animated scene. He was not long in discovering the whereabouts of his youthful kinsman, whose beaming face shone out from the midst of a bevy of particular friends, while ever and again above the turmoil, like a banner in the breeze, waved the tawny mane of Sir Digby Oakshott. It amused Railsford to watch the group, and when now and then they looked his way, to speculate on what was the subject of their conversation. Perhaps Arthur had been telling them of the new master’s athletic achievements at Cambridge, and how he had rowed his boat to the head of the river; or possibly he had been describing to them some of the big football-matches which he, Mark, had taken his young friend to see during the holidays; or maybe they were laying down some patriotic plan for the future good of Railsford’s house. His heart warmed to the boys as he watched them. It was a pity, perhaps, he could not catch their actual words.

“Seems jolly green,” said Dig.

“So he is. Blushes like a turkey-cock when you talk about spoons. Never mind, he’s bound to be civil to us this term, eh, Dig? We’ve got the whip hand of him, I guess, over that summer-house business at Lucerne.”

Here Dig laughed.

“Shut up! He’ll hear!”

“What’s the joke?” demanded a bullet-headed, black-eyed boy who sat near.

“What, didn’t I tell you, Dimsdale? Keep it close, won’t you? You see that chap with the eyeglass next to Grover. That’s Railsford, our new master—Marky, I call him. He’s engaged to Daisy, you know, my sister. Regular soup-ladles they are.”

Here Dig once more laughed beyond the bounds of discretion.

“What an ass you are, Dig!” expostulated Arthur; “you’ll get us in no end of a mess.”

“Awfully sorry—I can’t help. Tell Dimsdale about—you know.”

“Don’t go spreading it, though,” said Arthur, shutting his eyes to the fact that he was confiding his